Little White Lies
by quietandsneaky
Summary: Not wanting to start a fight with Sam, John fibs to him and tells him that he tried to find someone else to take his hunt but no one was available. When Dean confronts him about the lie, John finds out the real reason Sam wanted him to stay behind. Angry Dean, very guilty John.


**Disclaimer: The characters of Supernatural do not belong to me.**

 **A/N: I am still working on my current story The Moon and the Stars. I don't give an age for Dean and Sam in this story, but I picture them as maybe around 15/16 and 11/12.**

As the Impala continued to barrel down the road, John tried to block out the guilt. He was doing his best to get back to Sam without speeding. He'd gotten a speeding ticket in the town before them, and had skipped town before paying it. But the guilt couldn't escape him. For once, he'd left Sam and Dean without an argument. Sam had begged him to stay behind, to find someone else to take the hunt he was leaving for, claiming that he had a big surprise to give to John the night after he was due to leave. Rather than flat out refuse to make the call, John had told Sam what he'd assured himself was just a little white lie and wouldn't really hurt him. He'd sent Sam outside to do some training while he'd packed his duffel, then told Sam when he'd come inside that he'd tried to call Bobby, Jim, and Caleb to take the hunt and hadn't had any luck.

The look on Sam's face as John left had been hard to take, but it had allowed John to leave the house with minimal difficulty. He'd been gone for three days, but the victory of getting the ghost he'd gone after had been shallow. Had Sam actually argued with him when he said that he'd tried to make the calls, John knew then that he wouldn't have felt the slightest bit guilty. But instead Sam had taken it well, looking disappointed but accepting his answer at face value. When John realized _why_ Sam hadn't argued, it hit him hard.

He hadn't argued because he'd thought that John had actually tried to stay behind and spend some time with him for once.

And he didn't want to make his dad feel bad for actually trying.

Except John hadn't tried, and he prayed Sam didn't find out. The boy's trust in him was already fragile, and the thought of losing it shattered John. He and Sam were simply too alike for their own good. Neither would admit it, but that was the root cause behind most of their arguments. Sam stubbornly argued that they shouldn't be hunting, and John argued that they should be.

Unstoppable force, meet immovable object.

As he turned off the interstate to head back to the small rental house where he'd left Sam and Dean, he hoped that neither of them had discovered what he'd done. The lights were all off, except for one in the living room. John wasn't too concerned; when he was away, Dean sometimes slept on the couch in case he came home. Not thinking anything of it, John walked up, unlocked the door and stepped inside.

"Hey, Dad."

John jumped; Dean was sitting on the couch, wide awake.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you." Dean said, though John noted that he didn't sound the least bit sorry.

"What are you doing up, Dean?" John asked mildly, too tired to reprimand Dean like he really wanted. Both boys knew that he expected them to be in bed when he got home late at night from hunts.

"I couldn't sleep." Dean said.

"Where's Sammy?"

"In bed." Dean said. "Hey, Dad, I got a question."

"Shoot." John said, as he finished toeing the salt line back into place.

"You told Sam you called Bobby and asked him to go on this hunt, right?"

 _Shit,_ John thought. _He knows, which means Sam does too._ But rather than own up and tell the truth, John decided to try and buy time to come up with an excuse. "Yes, I did. Why?"

"I guess that means Bobby's going senile."

"What does that mean?"

"You see, Bobby called while you were gone." Dean said. "He wanted to wish Sam good luck at his award ceremony."

"Award ceremony?" John asked. "What award ceremony?"

"At his school. He wrote an essay and won a five hundred dollar prize for it. He read it to his classmates and all their parents."

"Do you have the award money?" John asked, and couldn't help the bit of excitement that crept into his voice.

"It's in my duffel."

"Great." John said, and the rare smile crossed his face. Money had been even tighter than normal lately. But the look of absolute disgust on Dean's face ended any relief John may have been feeling. "Dean, you have something to say?"

"Yes, sir. You lied to us. More important, you lied to Sammy."

"Dean. I had to go…" John said. "I didn't have time to call Bobby…"

"You sent Sam out to run for nearly an hour before you left. You didn't have two minutes to pick up the phone and ask Bobby if he could handle this?"

"Watch your tone, boy…"

"No." Dean said.

John waited for the familiar _sir,_ but it wasn't forthcoming. "Dean…"

"You can beat my ass for it, Dad, but don't ask me to show you respect right now. You know how I knew you lied? Because Bobby asked me where you were. Which I thought was funny, since apparently you asked him to take the hunt that you were on. But when I asked Bobby about that, he said he hadn't heard from you in a month. He also said to tell you that if he's supposed to cover for you, you need to let him know."

"Dean, stop it. I mean it, watch your mouth. I'm still your father." John growled. "You will show me respect whether you want to or not."

"Do you know what Sam said? After you left? He said that maybe he should stop being so hard on you. Because he appreciated the effort to be there for him, and he could see how upset you were that you didn't get to do it."

The guilt went up ever so slightly. Sam was much more forgiving that John would have been if Sam had lied to him. He didn't deserve the boy.

"I work my ass off, _sir_ , to convince Sam that you care about him. I'm the one who has to listen to him crying about 'why doesn't Dad like me'? And it's hard enough to convince him of that without you pulling this kind of crap. Do you enjoy hurting him, Dad?"

"No, Dean, of course not…"

"And by the way?" Dean said, not caring about interrupting John, and reaching next to him on the couch to pull up a paper that was lying on the floor. "Here's Sam's essay. Your surprise. The reason he wanted you to stay here so bad."

John's breath left his lungs. The essay topic was 'describe your personal hero and what, to you, makes them heroic'. When he read the topic, he expected Sam to describe Dean, but he didn't. Phrases from the essay started to ring through his head like alarm bells.

 _My Dad and I don't always get along._

 _He's away from home a lot._

 _I feel bad when I fight with him about leaving, but he has a job to do. A job that helps people, and that's important._

 _But no matter how much we fight, my dad is a hero._

 _My dad is a hero because no matter how often he's gone, he tries to come back home and tell us how much he cares about and misses us, even though he usually just wants to go to sleep._

 _He's taught me that a home isn't four walls, it's the people that live in it._

 _Even though he doesn't say "I love you" as much as I might like to hear, I've never doubted that he did love me._

 _I know when he is gone, he thinks about me all the time, and that makes me feel safe. It makes me feel like I matter to him, like he'd rather be home with me than away, and that means everything._

"Dad?"

John looked up, noticing immediately that the venom from earlier was completely out of Dean's voice. "Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

"What do you mean?" John asked.

"You're crying."

John wiped his face and found a lone tear falling. "I'm fine, Dean. I guess Sam really hates me now."

"Why would he?"

John asked, totally surprised, "He knows, right? You told him?"

"No, sir. I didn't." Dean said. "I didn't want to hurt him."

"Dean…" John couldn't believe the grace being showed by both his boys. He didn't deserve either of them, not just Sam. "Thank you."

"But, Dad, you gotta make a big deal outta this tomorrow. I'm talking let Sam pick what we have for dinner, tell him over and over you're proud of him, the works."

"Done." John said. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

"Don't lie about this again, Dad. Sam might fight you about all of us moving so much, but he's never asked you to leave a hunt before. He wouldn't do that unless it was important."

"I know, Dean. I know. I swear, it won't happen again."

Dean shifted on his feet a bit. "I'm sorry, Dad. About the not showing you respect thing."

"It's okay. I earned it." John said. "You're off the hook. _This_ time."

"Yes, sir. Good night."

"Good night, Dean."

John watched as Dean walked down the hall towards his room. He reread Sam's essay two more times, barely able to believe it. After he was sure Dean was sleeping, he crept into the room, where Sam was sleeping on his own bed. One foot stuck out of the end of the blanket. His hair was around his face, and he looked relatively peaceful. John gently pushed some of Sam's long hair out of his face, and, in a move he hadn't done in years, kissed his cheek.

"Good night, my little hero. Dad loves you."


End file.
